Week 34 - ATP 250 - Winston-Salem Open - Winston-Salem, NC (hard)

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 34 - ATP 250 - Winston-Salem Open - Winston-Salem, NC (hard)

Jan · Hall of fame

Ooh come on Kyle!
I've been away - no internet and a TV with an iffy red button! Just about managed to find out that Kyle had won yesterday - so pleased!

flamingowings · All-time great

Kyle is flying now and is 3-0 up. Keep going!

LordBrownof · Futures level

Kyle kicks his butt 6-2, 6-1.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Well that was a lot less stressful than yesterday.

Jan · Hall of fame

Brilliant

the addict · Tennis legend

Well done that man !

Next up - Steve Johnson, just one place and a handful of points behind Kyle in live rankings

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L16: (Q) Kyle Edmund WR 45 defeated Marton Fucsovics (HUN) WR 122 by 2 & 1 smile

******

QF: (6) Steve Johnson (USA) WR 46 (CH = 21 in July last year) vs (Q) Kyle Edmund WR 45

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Wallop! Great way to take care of business!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

The H2H is 1-0 in Johnson's favour, having beaten Kyle in the Aus Open 2015. I remember thinking that Kyle had a good shout that day, but Johnson's victory was pretty comprehensive, winning 6-4 6-4 6-3.

Let's hope Kyle gets his own back this time. I've no doubt both players have come a long way since then.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Now Isner bites the dust, taken out be Coric. The QF line up is

(1) Bautista Agut v Fritz
(14) Coric v Struff
(6) Johnson v Kyle
Dzumhur v (13) Chung

This leaves Kyle as the 2nd highest ranked player left in the tournament behind the top seed.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

This tournament should perhaps be renamed Winston-Salem Challenger had it not been for Bautista Agut.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Points accepted you don't like doubles and therefore it should only be reportedly independently or not at all, you think any tournament containing players outside the worlds top 30 should be called Challengers.

By definition we should call the first three rounds of each grand slam the challenger rounds or the challenger week.

These appear to be fixed firmly held beliefs. I think we just have to park them so to speak.

flamingowings · All-time great

To be fair, what kind of showing would you expect the week before a slam? A better field would be encouraged if it wasn't the week before. Even Kyle himself wasn't going to play but found himself lacking matches so here we are.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

This 'challenger' thing is all a bit lost on me.

If the seeds in a Grand Slam are Slam players (and surely, in linguistic terms, they must be, as they're seeded, so how could they not...).

And all the players after 32 are supposedly challenger players, then who are the ATP players? Is there some black hole?

(Unless, only the top 10 are 'true' Slam players. And 11 - 32 are ATP players. But then you've got a Slam draw of 128 with only 10 'Slam players', which makes no sense).

Anyway, names, and roses, and Shakespeare and all that......